Palestinian residents of al-Arroub refugee camp in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron attended a funeral Saturday for Ibrahim Baradiya, 54, who was killed by Israeli forces on Thursday after he allegedly attempted to carry out an ax attack near the camp entrance.

Baradiya’s body was transported to the refugee camp via a back road rather than the main road, out of fear that the Israeli authorities might try to take back the body after it was announced it had been delivered to the family “by mistake."

Palestinian military liaisons received the body on Friday, and it was then taken to al-Ahli hospital in Hebron.

During the funeral march, mourners called upon the international community to end Israeli violations against Palestinian rights.

Clashes broke out between Palestinian youths and Israeli military forces following the funeral.

Baradiya was among more than 200 Palestinians to be killed since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory in October. His killing marked the first after two consecutive weeks without deaths in the context of attacks or clashes -- the longest period without deaths since the escalation of violence.

Baradiya's death marked one of at least three residents to be killed by Israeli forces in al-Arroub refugee camp since October. Two other residents -- both teenagers -- were shot dead on separate occasions when clashes broke out during military raids on the camp.

The majority of Palestinians have been killed while allegedly carrying out or atempting to carry out small-scale attacks that have left nearly 30 Israelis dead, while nearly 50 have been shot dead during clashes with the military.

Several Palestinians that have been killed were shot dead under circumstances that rights groups and the international community have labelled extrajudicial executions carried out by Israeli forces.

Khalil Wazir Abu Jihad, killed by Mossad in his home in Tunis apr 16 1988

The Fatah party on Saturday commemorated the death of Khalil al-Wazir, a top leader of the movement who was assassinated by Israel in his home just under two decades ago.

Fatah supporters marched in honor of al-Wazir, known by his party as Abu Jihad, through the center of Ramallah city in the occupied West Bank, waving party flags and hoisting photos of al-Wazir.

Forcefully expelled from his home in Ramle during the establishment of Israel in 1948, al-Wazir for decades played a major role in Fatah’s military activities and was close with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The leader was exiled from Lebanon along with the rest of Fatah following Israel’s 1982 invasion and exiled from Jordan two years later, before finally landing in Tunis where he was assassinated in 1988.

Al-Wazir played an integral role in remotely organizing youths inside the occupied Palestinian territory in preparation for the First Intifada, and is one of a number of Palestinian leaders believed to have been assassinated by Israeli forces.

Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka strongly condemned Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu for asking the attorney general to open an investigation against him for his incitement against Jews.

Zahalka said, in response, that Netanyahu's request had no legal basis and accused him of aiming to "win cheap popularity by inciting against the Arab public and its leadership."

Netanyahu asked attorney general Avichai Mandelblit on Friday to examine whether Zahalka's call for Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Aqsa Mosque by all means possible constituted incitement.

In an interview conducted with him by Donia al-Watan website on Thursday, the Joint List lawmaker warned that the number of Jewish settlers defiling the Islamic holy site grows every day and urged the Palestinian factions to lead the popular struggle against the occupation.

Zahalka has been exposed recently to scathing attacks by several right-wing MKs from the Likud, the Jewish Home and the Labor Party, who launched an incitement campaign against him and accused him of inflaming the situation in Palestinian areas and adding fuel to the fire.

Zahalka, in turn, responded to such accusations by saying that "the tension is caused by the Jews' persistent break-ins at the Aqsa Mosque and their disrespect for its Islamic sanctity," stressing that "the only solution is to end the occupation."

Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement in the 1948 occupied lands, has warned of attempts by the Israeli security apparatuses to liquidate leading Arab figures at the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Sheikh Salah made his remarks during the Friday khutba (sermon) he delivered in Umm al-Fahm city. He denounced the frenzied Israeli arrest campaign against the Arabs in the 1948 occupied lands and affirmed that it would fail to intimidate them.

"Our will is stronger than Israel's injustice and occupation," he said. The Islamic Movement leader also urged the Palestinian people to defend their rights and the Aqsa Mosque.

During a recent cabinet meeting, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu incited against Sheikh Salah and called for jailing him.

Like apartheid South Africa did to justify its repulsive approach toward its majority black citizens, Israel is making all sorts of similarly despicable arguments to justify its decades-old evil occupation and systematic persecution of Palestinians.

As some of us remember, the apartheid South African regime had argued that black South Africans ought to be grateful to the White regime for giving them employment and enabling them to have a semblance of decent life.

The White regime’s PR machine would shamelessly argue that “Our black citizens have a higher standard of living than other fellow black people anywhere in the continent.” When I was studying in the states in the 1980s, I remember a visiting high ranking official from the apartheid regime boasting about the high living conditions enjoyed by blacks in South Africa in comparison to the rest of the continent.

“Ask them (South African black majority): would they prefer to live in South Africa or in Zimbabwe,” the official said.

What is wrong with this argument is that it doesn’t really distinguish between humans and animals. In the final analysis, humans, unlike animals, don’t live by bread alone. They are also entitled to freedom and dignity. This is the crux of the matter which fascist and racist regimes love to ignore.

Today, apartheid Israel is making virtually the same arguments to justify and defend its manifestly criminal treatment of the Palestinians. Thus, whenever Israel’s sinister occupation is criticized, we see that big-mouthed Israeli officials and professional hasbara liars try to make black look white and the white look black by claiming that Palestinians are better off than most other Arabs.

Now, as the BDS movement is gaining momentum to the chagrin of the Israeli establishment, Israeli officials and other hasbara mouthpieces are becoming more brazen in their defensive but mendacious discourse. And, yes, as usual, lying is their modus operandi.

They are saying the Palestinians ought to be thankful to Israel for not treating them like Bashar Assad or Abdul Fattah Sissi are treating their own peoples. One Zionist pundit wrote recently that were Israel to follow Arab rules, all Palestinians would have been expelled from “the Land of Israel a long time ago.”

Needless to say, this is a classic example of “going beyond Chutzpah” After all, since when the Hitler of Damascus, who murdered half a million of his own people, and the virulent tyrant of Cairo, who usurped power from the only truly democratically elected regime in Egypt’s history, were role models for the world to be followed or emulated?

So, Israel, “the purported light upon humanity” wants the Palestinians to thank Israel for murdering their children on the spot in the West Bank, and not burning them alive by way of dropping barrel bombs on their homes and schools as Assad is doing in Syria. Yes, Israel would like to see the Palestinians “thank” her for conducting slow-motion genocide whereas “human-rights unfriendly states” would pursue fast-motion genocide” and get rid of the problem once and for all.

But it is only sick and depraved minds that are capable of making such nefarious arguments. Otherwise, we should thank the Iberians Catholics for not playing by the rules of Old Testament and exterminating every Jewish man, woman and child during the inquisition!!

Israelis are embarrassed when explaining the Tsfarad Geroush (the Spanish inquisition) because it reminds them of something they don’t like to remember, namely the golden age Jews had undergone in Islamic Spain!!!

According to the morbid logic we hear from some Israeli officials, we should also thank the Nazis for building the concentration camps relatively later in the course of the Second World War, because had these death camps been established earlier, a greater number of Jews would have perished.

Yes, sickening arguments are only the product of sick minds. Today, in its rabid reaction to the non-violent BDS movement, Israel and its hasbara shipyard dogs, from Sydney to California, are arguing that it is the BDS campaign, not the malignant occupation, that is hurting the Palestinians.

That it is the BDS movement that is impeding the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, not the ubiquitous proliferation of settlements, inhabited by fanatic cutthroats who believe spilling more innocent blood would expedite and accelerate redemption and salvation!! I don’t know what sort of Torah are those people reading and following: The Torah of Moses or the Torah of Satan?

Well, in the Torah of Moses, Jeremiah 7:6, the God of Israel equated oppressing strangers living amongst Israelites with the greatest sin ever in Judaism, namely the unforgivable sin associating gods with God.

And in Exodus 22:21: The Almighty commands the Israelites, telling them in straightforward manner "Do not mistreat or oppress a stranger, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” Don’t tell me I am being selective or quoting things out of context.

For even the Talmud, who Orthodox Jews consider the verbal Torah, states that true Jews are not supposed to oppress non-Jews living in their midst. Let us consider the following Talmudic story which sums up the point I am trying to make: A heathen came to Shammai with the request to be accepted as a convert to Judaism on condition that he would be taught the whole of the Torah while he stood on one foot.

The Rabbi drove him away with a yard-stick he was holding. The heathen then went to Hillel with the same request. Hillel said to the man what is hateful to yourself, don’t do to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. “Go, learn it.”

Khalid Amayreh is a veteran Palestinian journalist and current affairs commentator living in Dura in the West Bank

In the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, an Israeli army vehicle ran over and injured a Palestinian teenager during clashes in al-Arrub refugee camp.

Local sources said an Israeli army vehicle ran over Muhammad Nidhal Abu Ghazi,15, before youths took him in a private car to a hospital in Hebron in moderate condition.

Several people suffered from tear gas inhalation and were treated on the scene.

The clashes in al-Arroub come after a Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli forces Thursday at the entrance of camp in the Hebron district, after he reportedly attempted to attack a soldier with an ax.

Two Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the area later the same evening.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip crowd near the borders with Israel every Friday to show solidarity with what Palestinians in besieged coastal enclave have termed the “Jerusalem Intifada” taking place in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

More than 1,400 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces since the start of this year, the majority during clashes that broke out with the Israeli military during protests in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Albana Dwonch is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington currently conducting research in Jerusalem.

Six months since its start, more questions have been raised than answered regarding the violent rebellion of youth in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“Is this a Third Intifada or not” was the first disputed matter brought up for debate by many media reports and analyses. The second, “Did social media fuel it?” caused an equal amount of confusion over its role in the latest youth revolt.

The confusion was first evident in the media’s difficulty to define these new leaderless actors and their unfamiliar mobilizing ways. Journalists had to alter their vocabulary and establish new terms such as “lone wolf” and “online inciter.”

Yet these terms were problematic as well. “Lone wolves” -- the users of the most archaic tools of the street -- were hard to distinguish from “online inciters”-- users of advanced social technologies, who produced, posted and shared videos of events with their social networks.

Despite the difficulty to define and explain these new actors and their decentralized methods for organizing, the overall conclusion is that social media has been a driver for the spread of violence and for the radicalization of Palestinian youth over the past six months.

However, this conclusion ignores a much deeper and persistent development. Beyond the specific role of social media in this youth revolt, the broader implications of the dramatic shift of social and media terrain are starting to alter Palestinian and Israeli political systems and their domestic and international sources of power.

The use of social media made clear that while the PA and Israel may still be able to contain the unrest, PA certainly cannot control the youth undertaking it, neither Israel can put a clear end to it.

Why angry but leaderless?

The degree to which social media fueled the dynamics of violence in this youth revolt is entangled in the broader implication of exposing the legitimacy crisis of Palestinian political structures.

The preference of youth for leaderless and decentralized mobilization reveals an acute disconnect and loss of faith in their parties and leaders.

The claim that viral dissemination of violent videos through social media diffused anger and incited further violence has now been eclipsed by another unintended social media effect of this latest cycle of violence.

The March 24 video by a citizen rights worker in Hebron exposed the fine line between “inciting” and “exposing” violence.

The sight of an Israeli soldier executing an already wounded Palestinian lying on the ground, exposed for the broader public, the less-witnessed side of the same dark story: Israel’s excessive use of state violence in the occupied Palestinian territory.

As with the fine line between “lone wolf” and “online inciter,” videos featuring “Palestinian knife-attacks” are now matched with videos featuring Israeli extrajudicial killings.

The exposure of state violence as an unintended effect in capturing “lone wolfs”, led to another problem: increased surveillance and censorship in search of “online inciters.”

Israel with its strong Internet infrastructure and Internet penetration rates amongst the highest in the world has, since October 2015, increased surveillance of the Internet, and has arrested hundreds of Palestinian youth for “online incitement” on their Facebook pages.

In addition, the Israeli government has shut down Palestinian media outlets in the West Bank and targeted Israeli rights NGOs which publicize videos and materials in defense of the human rights of Palestinians are now under state scrutiny, which paints them as suspect of being foreign agents.

Power structures strike back

Co-optation of non-state actors, increased surveillance and excessive use of military violence represent a familiar state response to such youth protests.

In fact, through its response to this unrest, the Israeli government bears a stark resemblance with the way the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza contained and then crushed the non-violent March 15 youth movement in 2011.

Inspired by the unforgettable images of the Arab Spring, the March 15 movement was initiated on Facebook in the form of an angry manifesto that triggered an emotional response by a vast plurality of youth who shared common frustrations and occupied the public squares in the West Bank and Gaza.

These protests were directed against the division between the Palestinian factions and other power structures. Shortly after, Palestinian authorities significantly increased Internet surveillance, shut down or co-opted local NGOs, dissolved online youth groups and jailed and threatened charismatic young leaders.

So, while the Israeli search for lone wolves and online inciters is far from over, something else far more important is unfolding: While state power response to youth protests are becoming relatively easy to predict, the next wave of youth protest and what it will bring is extremely unpredictable.

We have witnessed twice so far in this decade protests diffused through social media that have attempted to hit Palestinian and Israeli power structures. Both were sparked by a widely shared sentiment of anger and both surprised the power systems in place. And both were contained for the time being.

Yet, singling out social media as the reason for why these mobilization patterns fail or become violent distracts attention from understanding the evolving conditions that enable the transformation of emotional sentiment of hope or despair into the next movement for change against the de facto powers in place.

This understanding may dramatically shift the power relations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect Ma'an News Agency's editorial policy.

Israeli forces tend to an injured soldier, next to the body of a Palestinian man who attacked him outside Hebron, Oct. 16, 2015

The US has accused Israel of an "excessive use of force" against Palestinians, amounting to a violation of human rights, in its annual report of global human rights abuses.

The US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015 published Thursday highlighted numerous allegations of Israeli rights abuses, including the arbitrary arrest and torture of Palestinians, as well as restrictions on their freedom of movement and speech.

But most significant was the report's focus on Israel's excessive use of force, which follows months of similar allegations by local and international NGOs, as well as senior UN officials and foreign leaders, including, earlier this year, a group of prominent US congressmen.

The US report said that through the final months of 2015, after a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory in October, Israeli forces killed 127 Palestinians, of whom 77 were allegedly attacking Israelis.

"In a number of these incidents, there were reports of human rights abuses related to actions by Israeli authorities," the report said. "NGOs published multiple reports alleging that Israeli security forces committed unlawful killings."

It pointed in particular to a report by Amnesty International (AI) late in October that documented at least four incidents of Palestinians who were shot dead when they posed no imminent threat to life.

These included 18-year-old Hadeel Hashlamon who was shot dead at a Hebron checkpoint in September. The US report said: "Pictures of the standoff that led to her death and accounts by eyewitnesses that AI interviewed showed that she at no time posed a sufficient threat to the soldiers to justify their use of deliberate lethal force."

It also mentioned Abdullah Shalaldah, 28, who was shot dead when Israeli forces stormed al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron in order to detain his cousin. "While the IDF released a statement that Abdullah Shalaldah tried to attack them, witnesses reported to AI that he was unarmed, was standing some distance away, and had not attempted to attack them," the report said.

The Israeli army's excessive use of force has come under the spotlight in recent weeks after an Israeli soldier's gruesome killing of a wounded Palestinian was captured on camera in Hebron last month.

The killing was branded an "extrajudicial execution" by UN officials, while international rights groups and the Palestinian leadership stressed it was not an isolated incident but representative of routine Israeli army practice.

Shortly afterward, a letter was made public that had been sent in February by a group of 10 senior US congressmen to US Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting that US military assistance to Israel should be suspended if reports of Israeli rights violations, including "extrajudicial killings," should be proven true.

Rights abuses by range of actors

The US human rights report for the occupied Palestinian territory highlighted a range of other potential rights abuses by Israel, including the "arbitrary arrest" of Palestinians including children, their "austere and overcrowded detention facilities," and "improper detention procedures."

It pointed also to the "demolition and confiscation of Palestinian property; limitations on freedom of expression, assembly, and association; and severe restrictions on Palestinians' internal and external freedom of movement."

Looking beyond Israel, the report also detailed a wide range of human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The report pointed to the PA's mistreatment of detainees, restrictions on freedom of speech, widespread corruption, violence against women, as well as issues of discrimination based on sexual orientation and disability. Among other issues noted were child labor and forced labor.

In Gaza, meanwhile, the report said that "human rights abuses under Hamas included security forces killing, torturing, arbitrarily detaining, and harassing opponents, including Fatah members, and other Palestinians with impunity."

It also discussed Hamas' restrictions on the freedom of speech and movement, as well as the abuse of women and children and similar discriminations to those seen in the West Bank.

In recent years, the Palestinian leadership has stepped up efforts dramatically to apply international pressure on Israel to end its nearly 50-year military occupation.

Last month, it asked the UN to investigate allegations of extrajudicial killings, and the International Criminal Court is currently conducting a preliminary probe into the possibility of Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.

At the same time, however, the PA has used increasingly brutal means to maintain its own position among a disaffected population, detaining political opponents and preventing mass demonstrations. Many Palestinians accuse the government of working too closely with Israel.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which is intended to help determine the allocation of US foreign aid.

However, while the report has recorded Israeli human rights violations for decades, the US has continued to provide more than $3 billion in military assistance to Israel every year.

In their letter to Kerry published last month, the group of 10 congressmen suggested that "a unique situation" created since the Camp David Accords had "hindered" the usual mechanisms in determining the provision of US military assistance and monitoring its use.

Nearly 65,000 Palestinian worshipers managed to perform Friday prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque despite the Israeli tight restrictions throughout the occupied city of Jerusalem.

65,000 worshipers performed Friday prayers at the holy shrine including 200 worshipers from Gaza Strip who headed to the occupied city via Erez crossing.

Israeli police forces were deployed in large numbers since the early morning hours throughout the surrounding areas of the Mosque and the Old City.

During the Friday sermon, the preacher of al-Aqsa Sheikh Youssef Abu Snineh strongly condemned the Israeli “unfair” arrest of Sheikh Mohamed Salim over his last week sermon.

He also pointed out that Israeli authorities turn blind eye to Jewish break-ins and violations in the holy shrine, while restricting Palestinian worshipers’ entry. Sheikh Abu Snineh concluded by calling for achieving a real national unity.

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Occupied Jerusalem, has warned that Israel is trying to carry out its plot to divide the Aqsa Mosque temporally between Muslims and Jews.

Sheikh Sabri stressed that the Israeli occupation escalated recently its arrests and measures against pro-Aqsa activists in Jerusalem in order to pave the way for its temporal division plan at the Aqsa Mosque.

"For five years, we have noticed such attempts, albeit abortive, by the occupation at the Aqsa Mosque, and it will do it over and over again through carrying out arrests and issuing banishment orders in order to execute its temporal division plan at the Aqsa Mosque."

The head of the Islamic Council also pointed out that the Israeli occupation police prevent buses carrying Muslims from reaching the Aqsa Mosque with the aim of reducing their numbers at the Islamic holy shrine.

The Israeli occupation police have escalated during the last two weeks its arrest campaigns against Palestinian worshipers and pro-Aqsa activists in Jerusalem and banned several of them from entering the Mosque and the Old City.

Concurrently, they have facilitated the entry of more Jewish settlers to the Mosque.

Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia Archbishop Atallah Hanna said “Occupied Jerusalem is the symbol of the unity of Christians and Muslims before God and all peoples on Earth”.

In his speech during the opening of civilizations and cultures conference hosted by Czech capital Prague on Thursday and organized by the embassies of Islamic cooperation states, Hanna stressed the spiritual and religious value of the city of Jerusalem.

He affirmed that Jerusalem represents the Christian and Muslim brotherhood among the Arab nation in general and the Palestinian people in particular.

"Palestinian Christians are biased to the justice of the Palestinian Question since they constitute an essential part of the Palestinian people" he said.